Techmeme
January 20, 2026, 1:45 AM

Top News

Anthropic:
Anthropic details the “Assistant Axis”, a pattern of neural activity in language models that governs their default identity and helpful behavior  —  Read the full paper  —  When you talk to a large language model, you can think of yourself as talking to a character.
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
Cursor's recent experiment involved running hundreds of AI agents for nearly a week to build a web browser, writing 1M+ lines of code across 1,000 files  —  Scaling long-running autonomous coding.  Wilson Lin at Cursor has been doing some experiments to see how far you can push a large fleet of “autonomous” coding agents:
Kiran Stacey / The Guardian:
The UK launches a consultation on whether to ban under-16s from using social media, alongside restrictions on addictive app features like infinite scrolling  —  Move comes as peers prepare to vote on an amendment to a bill that would enact a ban within a year of the bill passing
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
xAI has faced a growing outcry from global regulators over Grok's generation of non-consensual explicit photos, but has faced little regulatory action in the US  —  Despite global uproar over the generation of non-consensual explicit photos, Elon Musk has continued to downplay the issue.
Ryan Vlastelica / Bloomberg:
Anthropic's Claude Cowork launch has revived fears about disruption that weighed on SaaS stocks in 2025; Morgan Stanley SaaS index is down 15% so far in 2026  —  The new year was supposed to bring opportunities for beaten-down software stocks.  Instead, the group is off to its worst start in years.
Katherine Doherty / Bloomberg:
The NYSE plans to use its tech that matches buyers and sellers, plus blockchain networks, to facilitate the real-time trading of tokenized securities in 2026  —  The New York Stock Exchange is building a venue using blockchain technology to allow for trading tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds around the clock.
Axios:
OpenAI executive Chris Lehane says the startup is “on track” to unveil its first device in H2 2026; reports suggest it won't have a screen and may be a wearable  —  OpenAI is “on track” to unveil its first device in the second half of 2026, the company's policy chief, Chris Lehane, said Monday at Axios House Davos.
Erin Woo / The Information:
Sources: internal Google data shows Gemini API calls surged from ~35B in March 2025 to ~85B in August 2025; Google says Gemini Enterprise has hit 8M subscribers  —  Google's improvements to its Gemini AI models are boosting the company's top line.  —  Over the past year …
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
Sources: Seoul-based AI chip designer FuriosaAI seeks to raise a $300M-$500M Series D to fund mass production of its 2nd-gen RNGD chip and is eyeing a 2027 IPO  —  Artificial intelligence chip designer FuriosaAI is seeking to raise as much as $500 million in a funding round …
More: SiliconANGLE
James Peckham / PCMag:
Taiwanese media: Asus Chair Jonney Shih says the company won't release any new smartphones in 2026, which may signal the brand's exit from the Android market  —  Asus won't release any new smartphones in 2026, and that may signal the brand's exit from the Android space altogether.

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More News

Jez Corden / Windows Central:
Alex Isenstadt / Axios:

Earlier Picks

Jack Dunn / Variety:
The Information:
Counterpoint Research: